


Fragments

by Kariki



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Recovering Memory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 01:45:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1492174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kariki/pseuds/Kariki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Steve wants is for Bucky to remember.  All Bucky wants is to not forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fragments

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't seen the movie yet. Oops. Beta'ed by [Hurricanine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hurricanine/pseuds/hurricanine)

The notebook was small, blue, and wrapped in plastic to keep its pages crisp and clean. A small pencil was sealed in with it. The set was in a plastic tub on the counter of a small thrift store with a few dozen other sets of notebooks and pencils.

It was the only blue one.

“They're only a dime,” The young woman behind the counter offered, a small smile on her lips. 

Bucky frowned. “Don't have a dime...” 

They both looked down at the worn boots he had placed on the table. He usually never bothered with actually buying his clothes. There were enough thrift stores and charity shops that left 'unusable' clothes and whatnot out behind their buildings. It didn't matter if his shirts and pants had holes in them, they could be covered up with other shirts and pants that had holes in different places. Boots were different though. Once a hole was worn into them, they were useless. 

“Don't have a dime,” Bucky repeated, digging into his pockets for what little money he had managed to collect over the week. Most of it was in quarters but it added up to a few dollars.

The woman nodded in sympathy and sold him the boots. She didn't mention that he was short 80 cents. She didn't mention it when she reached over and plucked the notebook out of the bin and slipped it into a boot.

She wished him a nice day.

* * *

“ _ **These boots are too big**_ ” was the first thing Bucky wrote in the small blue notebook. He had only just put the boots on, outside the very shop he had bought them in, and it was there that he wrote that first line.

“ _ **I hate black coffee**_ ”, “ _ **I like mustard on hotdogs**_ ”, “ _ **I know how to mend socks**_ ”

After the first week, ten pages of the small notebook was covered in such small observations. The scribbling covered both sides of the page and the writing was small and cramped. No space was wasted.

“ _ **I don't like cold weather**_ ”, “ _ **The Deli on the corner has prepaid hot chocolate and soup**_ ”, “ ** _I hate soup_** ”

* * *

“Bucky?” 

His boots had a hole in the right sole now and the notebook's pages were fanned out from it's binding; a little more than half of the pages were covered in pencil markings. The pencil itself was almost gone – sharpened down to the eraser with a penknife.

“ _ **He's found me**_ ” 

He kept the notebook close to his body, trying to keep it dry. The stoop he was sitting on was out of the rain but not out of the wind. 

It smelled like urine but most stoops in New York did.

“Bucky!” 

The man from the bridge knelt down in front of him, the large black umbrella he was carrying blocking out most of the wind and the rain.

“It's me... Steve...” Bucky glanced up at the man from under the brim of his baseball cap. He already knew that... didn't he? He flipped through the worn pages of the book, trying to find the name. No, it wasn't in there. Steve was from before, he wouldn't be in the notebook. 

“Bucky, look at me,” Steve insisted, leaning forward to try and put himself in Bucky's line of sight. He frowned in annoyance but looked up. 

Steve's smile was blinding and it made his chest hurt.

* * *

_**The man is called Steve Rogers. He knows me** _

* * *

Bucky kept the notebook by his hand as he devoured the diner food while Steve watched. He had been living off soggy sandwiches, bad fast food, and soup for months (“ _ **Big macs are awful**_ ”, “ _ **The cheese sandwiches are the only edible ones**_ ”, “ _ **Tomato soup is tolerable**_ ”) so the eggs, sausages, and pancakes tasted like heaven.

Steve only drank his coffee, sliding his own untouched plate over once Bucky was done with his own.

“I've been looking for you,” Steve said once Bucky was finished. “For a few months, actually.”

“I thought someone might...” Bucky frowned down at the empty plate. “I didn't want to be found.”

“Oh.”

“If you can find me, they can't be too far behind.” Bucky pulled the notebook to him, covering it's small cover with his hand, protecting it. “I don't want to go back.”

“You're not going back, Bucky. Not to anywhere you don't want to. Certainly not to HYDRA.” Bucky watched as a thin line formed between Steve's brow. He watched as his mouth hardened into a thin line and his body tensed in determination against the very idea. “They'd have to go through me first.”

“They'll do that.” He remembered enough to know that they would. 

“They can try.” Steve smirked and Bucky looked away. Outside the diner, he could see a nondescript black car waiting, probably for them. “Bucky... let me try.” Bucky looked back across the table. “Let me try and help you. If it doesn't work... if you still want to leave, I won't stop you.”

“You can't fix me.” Steve looked crushed as Bucky said the words. “Just... just don't get your hopes up.”

* * *

“ _ **I hate riding in the backseat of cars**_ ”

* * *

Steve lived in a decent apartment building with two small bedrooms, a very small bathroom, a very small kitchen, and a very nice view of the city. Bucky's room had a lock on the inside. It wouldn't do much against the agents, the other Avengers, or really anyone who wanted to get in but Bucky liked it regardless. 

He used it every day.

Bucky didn't want to talk to the SHIELD agents, he didn't want to talk to the doctors they would send, he didn't even want to talk to Steve's friends.

“ _ **The doctors are afraid of me. They have tranqs on them they don't think I know about**_ ”, “ ** _Thor is an actual god?_** ”, “ _ **Tony Stark is a cunt**_ ”

After two weeks, it was only Sam who continued to visit everyday. Sam took the hint early on, taking Bucky's silence and the locked door for the 'Leave Me Alone' they were meant to be. He didn't push him. Sam mostly visited for Steve's sake. Bucky had heard him reassuring Steve, almost every day, that Bucky needed time to adjust.

Bucky wasn't sure if Sam was right but it was better than being called crazy.

* * * 

“ _ **I had a cat when I was a kid**_ ”

* * *

The memory slammed into his brain with such a shocking, unexpected ease that he felt staggered. The metal of the fire escape twisted and squealed under his metal hand and the alley cat he had been watching dashed away in fright.

But it was there now.

He remembered the small, gray tabby cat with it's tiny paws dipped in white fur. He remembered holding the kitten in his hands – both his hands had been pink and pudgy with childhood back then – and cradling it to his chest. He remembered the tiny needle pricks of its claws kneading against him.

Steve climbed out the window, muscles tense and ready for a fight. The shield glinted in the sunlight. 

“Bucky?” Steve finally focused on him, confused concern in his eyes. There was no fight or attack out here, just Bucky. “What...”

“I... I had a cat.” Just saying the words made his heart feel as though it were about to beat out of his chest and his head felt full of air but he was smiling. “Steve... I had a _cat_ ”

Steve blinked. “A cat?”

“Socks.” Bucky breathed the childish name.

Bucky watched as the name sank in. He watched as Steve's eyes grew from confused to excited as he realized just what he was being told.

“You remembered!”

* * *

“ _ **My first girlfriend had red hair**_ ”

After Socks, memories would drift up from the depths of his consciousness. 

“ _ **I saw Snow White in a theater in Brooklyn and hated it.**_ ”

None of them were really important or revealed new aspects of his old self. 

“ _ **The baker down the street from the orphanage used to give Steve, me, and the other kids cookies every Sunday.**_ ”

They were memories though, and they were his.

“ _ **Most of the fights I was in before the war involved Steve**_ ”

Bucky would sit at the small kitchen table and fill out page after page of the blue notebook, its page count dwindling rapidly. Steve never bothered him when he wrote but leaned against the counter and just watched. 

It was Sam who finally said something.

“Why the notebook?” 

“ _ **I broke my right hand when I was a kid by punching a wall.**_ ”, “ _ **We had a neighbor called Peter Bray. His dog bit me.**_ ”, “ _ **I liked detective stories**_ ”, “ _ **I first got drunk when I was –**_ ”

“What?” Bucky looked up, his concentration derailed.

“The notebook.” Sam nodded to the small, worn-out book under his hands. There were only one or two pages left now that weren't completely covered in writing. “Why do you have it?”

Bucky leaned back, closing the notebook and looking down at it. It wouldn't stay closed, the pages no longer able to lay flat. It slowly opened itself. 

He put his hand over it to keep it closed.

“It's mine. That's all that matters.” 

Bucky didn't write in the kitchen anymore.

* * *

“ _ **There's only one page left**_

* * *

There was a small square package on the kitchen table. It was thick and wrapped in brown paper. 

There was a blue bow on the corner and his name written across the front.

“You don't have to accept it.” Steve stood on the other side of the table, looking down into his coffee mug. “I just thought... I thought you might like it.”

“What is it?” Bucky slid the gift closer and ran his fingers over it. He could feel a sturdy softness under the paper.

“It's a present, Bucky,” Steve smiled, setting the cup down.

Bucky frowned but carefully removed the paper.

It was journal. 

Bucky picked up the thick, leather bound book and felt the weight in his hands. It was far heavier and far bigger than the blue notebook.

“I...I just got to thinking. You never said what you were writing in your notebook,” Steve stammered slightly, nerves getting the better of him. “But I guessed... they were things you remembered, right?”

Bucky stared at the journal, not answering even as he creaked the cover open. On the front page was a black and white picture he had seen before. 

“I don't want you to forget anything, Bucky,” Steve continued on, watching him closely. “I think that scares you – the thought you might forget. So I...” He trailed off as Bucky looked up at him. “Your notebook's almost out of paper.”

“No... You're right,” Bucky said softly, setting the book down and picking up the old photograph. He couldn't remember where it was taken or when. “I don't want to forget.”

Steve smiled.

“Thank you...”

Inside the journal was a thin blue pen, tucked under a tiny bit of elastic.

“ _ **My name is James 'Bucky' Buchanan Barnes. I was born in 1925. I had a cat named Socks and my best friend ~~was~~ is Steve Rogers. I won't forget again.**_ ”


End file.
